Biographica
Napa California 1963
I am not a visual person; I am first a storyteller. I think in words, and have been obsessed with language all my life. I speak six languages and am a frequent champion speller at the Tap and Bottle Adult Spelling Bee. Some of my favorite words are opsomania, homunculus, aspic, and mumpsimus.
I have always loved maps. I can curl up and read maps the way many people curl up with a good novel. I love how maps tell us stories about landscape and place.
I take play seriously. I feel like I’m getting somewhere important when I catch myself laughing out loud when I’m all by myself in the studio.
I grew up in Santa Cruz, California and have a degree in Biology from Lewis and Clark College. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Burkina Faso, West Africa in the early eighties. In 1985 I moved to Tucson, Arizona where I worked as a truck driver, Food Bank program director, urban forester, training consultant, gardener, and farmer’s market vendor. In 1993 I started to paint on glass and suddenly everything made sense.
I am especially indebted to three people:
Tom Philabaum, who has effortlessly opened stuck doors for me since my very first attempts to paint.
Chris Larsen, who gave me a big box of dusty old maps a couple of years ago.
Babacar Lo, whom I have never met, whose exquisite glass paintings taught me how to paint in reverse.
